


The Lightsaber

by Tellemicus_Sundance



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Lightsabers, May the Force Be With You, Star Wars References, The Force
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 07:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10509093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tellemicus_Sundance/pseuds/Tellemicus_Sundance
Summary: A childhood love, combined with magical experimentation, and a determination to see his project brought to life. This was all it took to change the world...forever. (A/N: Based on numerous reviews, 'suspension of belief' is evidently required to enjoy this story)





	1. A New World Dawns

The Lightsaber  
By: Tellemicus Sundance  
#01: A New World Dawns

There was a powerful storm raging outside. The winds beat and swayed the stone walls and timber around him, attempting to rip the structure to pieces. Rain pelted everything under the power and guidance of the winds, drenching everything and everyone who were foolish or unlucky enough to get caught out in it. Lightning flashed through the clouds with considerable intensity and frequency, occasionally striking down at some high-rise or metallic structure. In many senses of the word, this storm was one to be remembered for the ages. But for all its power and ferocity, it was still unable to affect any type of change on the stone structure that stood upon the banks of the nearby coast.

Looking down carefully at the object that was nestled in the palm of his hand, a white-haired old man gazed at it with an intense scrutiny. The metallic rod with some small rubber strips lining the lower half with some small leather straps crisscrossing around the rest of it in a style reminiscent of a Japanese katana, making for an excellent grip. There was a strip of transparent and strong glass that was visible between the leather straps midway up the hilt, exposing a faintly glowing gem inside that was firmly held in place between some small clamps and other machinery. And above the gem and its housing chamber was a couple adjustment knobs and an activation button, set just under a disc that had an open ending. The overall object was covered in tiny runes hidden under the leather and rubber grips that were etched deeply into the metal surfaces, to avoid the runes getting damaged and deformed. A necessary and smart feat since the old device was covered in small nicks, scrapes, and scratches, showing the many years of usage it had endured in the hands of its creator.

“Grandpa,” a young voice said from the open doorway of his room. “I’m scared.”

The old man looked up, easily spotting the dark silhouette of his 5-year-old granddaughter and he smiled gently at the small red-haired child. Raising his arm, he beckoned the child inside. “Well, come on in, little one.”

The little girl eagerly raced inside the man’s bare, Spartan quarters and climbed up to sit on the side of his bed next to him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, the child buried her face into his robes when an especially loud crash of thunder echoed through the room. Her grandfather just smiled understandingly as he wrapped her up in his arm, holding her gently but firmly, letting her draw comfort from his presence.

After a moment, the girl relaxed slightly and then noticed the device he held in his hand. “Grandpa, why do you have that out?”

“Ah, just remembering really old times,” the old man answered, a wistful look crossing his face as he returned his gaze to what he held. “So many things happened, so many of them stupid, dangerous, or just unexpected. A new world was dawning around us back then, but we didn’t know it at the time. And all of it happened because of this. This little thing right here caused so much death, so much devastation, and completely reshaped the world around us.”

“Can you tell me the story, grandpa?” the girl asked, wide begging eyes looking at him. She loved hearing about her grandfather’s adventures and he always had so many of them that she was never bored. But she had never heard him tell this particular story before.

“It’s not really a happy story, my dear,” he said, trying to change her mind quickly before she set herself firm.

“Please?” her begging eyes wider and wetter now. “I really wanna hear it!”

Sighing at the lost cause, he finally nodded. “Very well. It all started when I finally finished building this thing for the first time. It was something that had never been done before. And while it was very famous and popular beforehand, no one believed it was truly possible. And at the time, I didn’t realize just what I had done or how it would change me or the world. All I cared about was that I finally had a weapon that I thought could help me defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort…”

August 1995  
Something had happened to the night. The star-strewn indigo sky was suddenly pitch-black and lightless. The star, the moon, the misty streetlamps at either end of the alley had vanished. The distant grumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick, icy mantle over the entire alleyway, blinding them.

For a split second, Harry thought he had done magic without meaning to, despite the fact that he’d been resisting as hard as he could. Then his reason caught up with his senses, he didn’t have the power to turn off the stars. He turned his head this way and that, trying to see something, but the darkness pressed on his eyes like a weightless veil.

Dudley’s terrified voice broke in Harry’s ear. “W-What are you d-doing? St-Stop it!”

“I’m not doing anything! Shut up and don’t move!”

“I c-can’t see! I’ve g-gone blind! I —”

“I said shut up!” Harry stood stock-still, turning his sightless eyes left and right. The cold was so intense that he was shivering all over, goose bumps had erupted up his arms, and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He opened his eyes to their fullest extent, staring blankly around, unseeing… It was impossible…They couldn’t be here…Not in Little Whinging…He strained his ears. He would hear them before he saw them.

“I’ll t-tell Dad!” Dudley whimper. “W-Were are you? What are you d-do—?”

“Will you shut up?” Harry hissed. “I’m trying to lis—” He fell silent as he heard what he’d been dreading. There was something in the alleyway apart from themselves. Something that was drawing long, hoarse, rattling breaths. Harry felt a horrible jolt of dread as he stood trembling in the freezing air.

“C-Cut it out! Stop doing it! I’ll h-hit you, I swear I will!”

“Dudley, shut—” WHAM!!

A fist made contact with the side of Harry’s head, lifting him off his feet. Small white lights popped in front of his eyes. For the second time in an hour, he felt as though his head had been cleaved in two. The next moment he had landed hard on the ground, and his wand had flown out of his hand.

“You moron, Dudley!” Harry yelled, his eyes watering with pain. He scrambled to his hand and knees, feeling around frantically in the blackness. He heard Dudley blundering away, hitting the alley fence, stumbling. “DUDLEY, COME BACK!! YOU’RE RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!!”

There was a horrible squealing yell, and Dudley’s footsteps stopped. At the same moment, Harry felt a creeping chill behind him that could only mean one thing. There was more than one.

“DUDLEY, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!! WHATEVER YOU DO, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Wand!” Harry muttered frantically, his hands flying over the ground like spiders. “Where’s – wand – come on – Argh! That’s it!”

Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans and the breast pocket of his shirt, Harry grabbed to metallic pieces that were held there. One was long and shaped vaguely like some kind of sword hilt. The other was a metal disc with a slight protruding shroud over one end and a screw assembly engraved upon the other. Placing the two pieces together and hurriedly screwing the smaller disc to one end of the hilt, locking in place with an audible clamp, he hefted up the device and thumbed the activation button.

Like a fire that promised warmth and security during a long, cold winter’s night, a shaft of bright bluish-white light sprang to life from the end of the disc’s emitter. The strong light of the shaft cut through the encompassing darkness, illuminating everything within a five meter radius. In a strange sense, the blade of light brought with it the promise of hope and determination.

Turning around, Harry’s stomach turned over as he spotted a towering figure heading towards him. The hooded creature glided through the air with a supernatural grace that was terrifying as it was swift. It had no feet or face beneath its robes, sucking on the night as it came. Despite stumbling backwards, Harry raised his weapon threateningly, trying to ward the creature of darkness. But the entity ignored the glowing blade as it reached for him. Yelling out in a wordless cry, Harry swallowed his fear and swung the blade.

A piercing cry screeched from the creature’s nonexistent mouth as the light flashed forward and sliced through its gray, slimy, scabbed flesh. The severed limb dissolved into ash as it fell, completely disintegrating before it’d even reached the ground. With a renewed sense of courage, Harry lunged forward again before the Dementor could recollect itself, stabbing his blade straight into its torso where a heart would’ve beat on any other living being.

The Dementor’s following screech was so loud and deafening that it actually caused Harry’s ears to ring, and probably would’ve easily shattered all glass within its radius. Thankfully the scream was quickly silenced as he yanked his weapon upwards, cutting through yet more of the Dementor as he pulled out the blade. Before he’d even managed to fully extract the weapon, the Dementor had already burst into a similar disintegrating ash and wispy shadows that quickly disappeared.

Turning around and holding his weapon up level with his head in an offensive stance, Harry faced where he knew Dudley had run off towards, ready to deal with the second one. But he quickly saw that the creature was already fleeing, having seen its brethren killed so easily. Lowering his weapon, Harry looked about the ground and finally spotted his dropped wand. Picking it up and pocketing it, he hurried over towards Dudley.

As he did, the moon, the stars, and the streetlamps burst back to life. A warm breeze swept the alleyway. Trees rustled in neighboring gardens and the mundane rumble of cars in Magnolia Crescent filled the air again. Harry stood quite still, all his senses vibrating, taking in the abrupt return to normality. After a moment, he became aware that his t-shirt was sticking to him, he was drenched in sweat. Once he was sure that the Dementor was not returning, he turned to face his cousin.

Dudley lay curled up on the ground, whimpering slightly and shaking, but also staring with wide eyes. As Harry bent down, he saw just what his cousin was staring at. In a strange way, Harry could see that Dudley’s eyes were latched upon the blade. The look in his eyes was as though he were seeing something in it, something profound and awe-inspiring, as though it was the only thing that had kept him from giving into the power of the Dementor’s all-happiness consuming aura. Pressing the button, he withdrew his weapon’s blade with a sharp hiss, unscrewing the emitter, and pocketing the two pieces yet again.

“You okay, Dudley?” Harry asked, trying to sound gentle and not incite his cousin’s wrath again.

“I—I—I…saw it,” Dudley whispered, shaking even harder as an unknown imaged flashed before his eyes again.

“Yeah, kinda hard to miss a glowing blade right in front of—”

“No…That thing,” Dudley interrupted. “I c-couldn’t see it…o-or anything…Then you made the light come back…and I…saw it…It was disgusting.”

Despite himself, Harry’s eyebrows rose up in surprise. His cousin wasn’t even the least bit concerned with what he saw Harry using to fight off the Dementors with. He was shaken because he had seen the Dementor itself. And that was what really surprised Harry. As creatures that were in many ways the ‘purest’ representation of the darker side of magic, Dementors were invisible to all beings with no magic. Could it be that his new weapon could somehow illuminate Dementors and make them visible to the common man? Definitely something to think on later.

Crouching down, he grabbed ahold of his cousin’s arm and shoulder to help hoist him back to feet. “Come on, Big D, let’s get you home.”

 

Harry could honestly say that he’d never had a more aggravating, stressful, or loud argument with his uncle and aunt before. The moment Harry and Dudley had returned to their home, Petunia and Vernon had seen something wrong with Dudley and promptly attacked Harry with a long list of accusations and more than few threats. But with some unexpected and very heartening backup from Dudley, Harry had managed to ride his relatives’ fury and explain most of what had happened. Though Vernon came very close to kicking Harry out once he got the idea of Harry being a criminal to the Magical World for ‘using a magic sword’, Dudley again came to Harry’s rescue. So, instead of being kicked out, he was sentenced to isolation in his room for the remainder of his stay at Privet Drive.

It was close to midnight now and all was quiet in the house. Harry sat upon his bed, staring down at his weapon that he’d once again assembled and placed upon the bed in front of him. How had his weapon managed to harm and kill the Dementors? How had it somehow given Dudley the ability to see creatures that were supposedly invisible to the naked nonmagical human eye?

Harry wasn’t egotistical enough to believe that his weapon was simply that powerful. He had more or less started designing, experimenting, and building it since he first set foot into Hogwarts four years ago. His experiments leapt forward years in advance when he started his Runes class, learning to enchant and place permanent enchantments onto objects that were anchored by the runes written upon them. Runes played a significant role in his creation of this weapon. With careful transfiguration of certain pieces, enchanted muggle electronics, a small potion of his own creation that could create plasma when a high-intensity light beam was passed through it, and a small ward erected around the emitter disc to contain the plasma blade, he knew that his weapon was something original.

But that still didn’t explain to him just how it could do these other special effects without his knowing. He knew he didn’t know enough about magic to have consciously built these abilities into the blade design. So how could they have happened? Granted, the weapon was half-magical. Perhaps the magic that created, maintained, and contained the blade is what allowed this to happen?

“Ugh, this doesn’t make any sense,” Harry muttered to himself.

A questioning hoot from his beloved familiar echoed across the room. Looking over at his beautiful snow-white owl, Hedwig, Harry gave her small, uncertain smile. “Sorry, girl, I just don’t understand how my saber is apparently so powerful.”

Hedwig just gave him a partial deadpan stare, as if to say ‘Why do you care? It works, doesn’t it?’

Chuckling despite himself, Harry nodded to the night bird. “You’re right, it probably doesn’t matter how or why. Just that it does.”

A hesitant knocking on his door broke Harry from his thoughts. Reaching forward, he quickly swept his weapon under his pillow as he stood to his feet. After a quick examination that it was properly hidden, he moved over and opened the door partially, exposing Dudley outside.

“What is it, Dudley?” Harry asked, torn between 14 years of bad relations with his cousin and a recent sense of gratefulness for his cousin’s unexpected defense of him against his own parents. “It’s late and I’m tired.”

“I wanna talk,” Dudley said.

“We already are,” Harry pointed out.

Dudley just gave him a slight glare, before gesturing with his chin for Harry to open the door fully. With a slight sigh, Harry complied. Once the fat boy was inside and the door was closed, the two cousins faced one another, both suddenly uncomfortable and uncertain how to start the inevitable conversation.

Just as Harry was about to sigh and make a question, Dudley seemed to have firmed his resolve and asked, “Lightsaber?”

Looking up, Harry couldn’t quite stop the slight quirk of his lips in a proud smile. “Heh, guess I’ve seen too much Star Wars growing up.”

“So…it was real?” Dudley asked, eyes widening in realization that the beautiful light blade he’d seen had been what he first and still thought it was. “You actually made a real lightsaber?! How?!”

“Lots of hard work and studying,” Harry said, hedging the actual details. “But let’s just say that without magic, I never could’ve done it.”

Despite himself, Dudley couldn’t help but agree with his wizardly cousin. He knew as well as Harry that lightsabers were as close to impossible to make with science and today’s present technology. The fact that a Wizard could make one didn’t seem nearly as farfetched, disappointing as it may have been.

“C-Can I…Can I see it?” The hesitance but obvious youthful desire in the fat boy’s request caught Harry off guard for a moment before a warm smile crossed his lips.

“Only if you keep it a secret,” Harry said, still smiling. “I don’t want to get swamped by millions of fanatics who all want one too.”

A slight grin pulled at Dudley’s face before he nodded in acceptance. Moving over to his bed, Harry pulled out the hidden weapon and handed it carefully to his cousin. Dudley took the weapon with the reverence one might expect when handling a holy artifact. He slid his hands over the hilt, examining as much of it in the faint moonlight as he could, twisting it every which way, staring at the small blue gem that was glowing behind the glass and leather.

Pressing the activation button gently, he flinched back slightly when the blue blade sprung to life from the end of the hilt. Staring up at it with a wide-eyed gaze, Dudley turned and moved the blade cautiously around, marveling at how the beam held its shape and consistency. It was, as he’d always imagined, a truly beautiful piece of art.

“No wonder you were able to kill those things,” Dudley couldn’t help uttering as he continued to stare into the blade. “Nothing could stand up against something like this!”

“Technically, I only killed one of them,” Harry couldn’t help pointing out, his smile disappearing at the reminder. There was still a rogue Dementor out there, one likely under Voldemort’s control, hence why it attacked them. He needed to send Hedwig with a letter to Dumbledore or the Ministry or someone important about that as soon as possible.

“I wonder if you could stop this Dark Lord that’s after you with this,” Dudley said, finally looking away from the blade and to its creator.

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Harry said, shrugging slightly. Dudley could only nod at that, thumbing the button and retracting the blade with hiss.

“I wish I could have one,” Dudley said, handing the lightsaber back to Harry. “Wizards and magic are scary and make no sense. But a lightsaber? That is so cool!”

Harry could only grin as he took his weapon back, unlatching the emitter with a casual twist. “To be honest, if I had had the choice, I’d have chosen to have been a Jedi myself. The Wizarding World may be a ‘magical’ place, but it’s far more complex and dangerous than it needs to be.” Then a small chuckle escaped Harry as he grinned up at his cousin. “Yeah, you’d have been my ‘Han Solo,’ and I your ‘Luke Skywalker.’ Wouldn’t have that been something?”

“Yeah,” Dudley answered, a grin crossing his face at the silly thought. Then his grin widened as he looked down at Harry. “Especially since Han got the girl at the end!”

As Harry was snorting, a sudden familiar cold and darkness descended around them. Ice began forming upon the window glass and the faint moonlight vanished for the second that night. As Dudley started to recoil and gasp in terror at the return of the horrible sensations, Harry slapped his lightsaber back together and ignited the blade, basking his room and cousin in light once again. Spinning himself around, Harry searched quickly for the source of the freezing darkness.

“H-H-Harry?” Dudley nervously called out, also looking around and trying to find the monster he’d briefly seen earlier. “Wh-Wh-Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said, twisting and turning. “I can’t see it. But…something’s wrong. It’s…not as cold as it was earlier.”

“It’s close by but…” Dudley muttered for a moment, reviewing the facts about the hooded monster that Harry had shared with the Dursleys earlier. Then an ominous realization came to him. “MUM!! DAD!!”

Spinning around, he yanked the door to the hallway open. Almost immediately, they were hit by a blast of much colder air. But before Dudley could rush blindly out and head for his parents’ room, Harry grabbed his shoulder and squeezed past, his lightsaber leading the way. At the end of the hall, he burst into his aunt and uncle’s room, another and much colder gust of air washing over him. In the blue light his saber was giving off, Harry and Dudley beheld a terrible sight. A Dementor hovering over the sleeping form of Petunia, its face pressed against hers, sucking deeply.

With a loud roar of unexplainable fury, Harry immediately launched himself forward with a speed he never knew he possessed before. Swinging his lightsaber with all the speed and strength he could muster, he slashed the deadly blade clean through the surprised and recoiling Dementor’s midriff as it rose and tried to dodge away. As with the previous one, it let out a horrendous screech as it was began rapidly disintegrating, the icy aura of darkness and depression evaporating with it.

“MUM! DAD!!” Dudley cried out, rushing forward to his parents as Harry backed away, switching off his saber while he headed for the light switch. The sight that greeted him once the lights flashed on was heartbreaking, even despite who it had happened to. “WAKE UP!! PLEASE, WAKE UP!! MUM! DA! PLEASE!!!”

Dudley was shaking his parents, first Vernon and then Petunia, trying to awaken their unresponsive bodies. As he moved forward, he easily saw the uncomprehending, glazed look in each of their eyes as they just laid there. They did make any movement or even seem aware of their son’s presence and frantic persistence at trying to rouse them. Despair quickly rose up in Dudley as he saw the continued unresponsiveness of his parents, tears of fear and anger falling from his eyes as he continued trying to somehow wake them.  
Turning to Harry, he cried out, “HELP, PLEASE!! I’ll do anything! Just, please, HELP THEM!!!”

“I can’t.” Never had Harry ever felt so powerless or guilty as he did when he uttered those two words to his frantic cousin. “They’re…gone. That Dementor sucked out their souls…like it was trying to do to us earlier.”

“But WHY?!” Dudley yelled, reaching over and grabbing ahold of Harry’s shirt, trying to shake the answers from him. “Why them? Why go for them?! They didn’t do anything!!”

“Because that’s what a Dementor does,” Harry said loudly, trying to unsuccessfully pry Dudley’s hands off with his one free hand. “It doesn’t need a reason. It eats peoples’ souls because that what it does. It doesn’t care about who they are or why.”

“B-B-But…Mum…Dad…” Dudley’s grip loosened as he collapsed limply to his knees, sobbing freely. Unable to find the right words, Harry could only kneel down next to him and pat his shoulder. It was a feeble attempt at best, but he didn’t know anything else to do.

 

The next morning was terrible under the roof of Number Four Privet Drive. Dudley remained up in his parents’ bedroom, still mourning over them and occasionally trying to wake them up. Harry had tried to get him to come out and get some breakfast, but the boy was immovable. He barely ate anything that was put in front of him. His eyes red with dried lines down his cheeks from constant crying. With nothing else to do, Harry simply went about the chores that the Dursleys had more or less programmed into him at an early age. It was a weak attempt at keeping his mind off the soulless beings who were upstairs.

Finally, shortly after noon had passed, Dudley descended down the stairs and took a seat at the kitchen table. Harry looked over at his cousin from where he was washing his dishes from his little meal, before shutting off the water and drying his hands. He took a seat across the table from his cousin, waiting patiently for him to speak.

“This Dark Lord…” Dudley said, in a low voice as he kept his gaze focused down on the table between them. “Who is he? And what does he want?”

“His birth name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, but he took up the name Voldemort when he left Hogwarts fifty years ago,” Harry said, equally lowly as his cousin. “He was born into a family that was descended from one of the magic school’s founding Wizards: Salazar Slytherin. Slytherin had long ago decided that he didn’t want to teach students who weren’t of a ‘pure magical lineage’ and had grown to despise them. He saw anyone who wasn’t born into a magical family as being abominations who were little better than trained animals. His ideas spread among the other Wizarding families, especially those of ‘pure blood’ who wanted more power over others and would anything to get it.”

“And this ‘Voldemort’ leads these purebloods?” Dudley guessed, a small frown forming on his face. “To what? Enslave all those who weren’t born into a ‘pure’ family?”

“More or less,” Harry admitted. “I’ve met him several times. I don’t think Voldemort cares so much about blood purity as he does simply wanting to dominate all others. He wants to rule over all others, be they Pureblood or Mudblood, and he’s just using the blood purity as an excuse.” Taking a breath, Harry slowly continued, “My parents fought against him, long ago. That is how and why they died. He killed them because they were strong and could resist him. But when he tried to kill me for some reason, the Killing Curse backfired and he was destroyed, left little more than spirit without a body. No one knows how he managed to survive, or how I did for that matter. But, during this past June, one of his old servants captured me and used me in a ritual to revive him. It worked, and he’s back.”

“And now he’s going to restart his war,” Dudley said. “Try to make everyone his slaves again, or kill those who don’t submit to him.”

“More than likely, yes,” Harry said.

“And that is why you built the lightsaber,” Dudley continued. “Because it is something that he’s probably never seen or heard of before. He wouldn’t know how to fight against it.”

“Yes and no,” Harry admitted. “I built it before he was reborn, because I had wanted to see if it was even possible to do it. I never had any intention of actually using it.”

“No,” Dudley said, finally looking up at Harry. “If that was true, you would’ve never had it with you last night. Those…Dementors…would’ve killed us, for sure. No, I don’t believe it is a coincidence that you just happened to make it by accident. No, you were meant to make it.”

That statement really made Harry feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t help lowering his gaze from his cousin’s piercing stare. “…Maybe.” After a moment of awkward silence, Harry lifted his gaze back to his cousin. “So, what will you do now?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dudley asked, his face solemn and more serious than Harry had ever seen it before. “I’m gonna help you kill that bastard.” As Harry was opening his mouth to object, Dudley raised his hand to silence him. “They made this personal, Harry. You’re not going to change my mind.”

Seeing the look of repressed anger hidden under deep layers of fresh grief, Harry just let out a long, low sigh. “Fine, then. But it’ll take time, remember that. And if we’re really going to do this, we need to get you up to speed on all things magical… Can you handle that?”

“I’ll deal with it,” Dudley grunted. “Once everything…here is settled, I’m going to join a military academy and get properly trained.”

Nodding, Harry pushed himself out of the seat. “Well then, no time like the present to get started. Let me go get a few things, and we can head over to Diagon Alley.” As he was heading for the hallway and the stairs, he suddenly stopped and turned back to his cousin. “What do you want to do with…them?”

A pained expression filled Dudley’s face for a long moment. Then, he dropped his gaze to the floor as he sighed. “I’ll call the ambulances tomorrow… Maybe they could find some way to help?”

Harry didn’t have the heart to remind Dudley of the high unlikelihood of that happening. He just nodded. Standing up, Dudley nodded and followed his cousin to the front door, waiting for him to return and for them to get started on their journey.

Though neither of them would realize it until much later, that moment was the ending of their childhoods and their first steps into a much larger world.


	2. The Alley and the House

The Lightsaber  
By: Tellemicus Sundance  
#02: The Alley and the House

Noon

Dudley’s reaction to first seeing the magical street of Diagon Alley was perhaps a very similar representation of his own, Harry later decided. His eyes lit up in wonder at the many colorful and casual displays of magic, the rustic and old world feel, the many different sights and sounds and smells. If it was physically possible, Harry had little doubt that the Dursley boy’s head would’ve been spinning like a top as he tried to see and experience everything.

“Welcome to Diagon Alley,” Harry said, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he shot his cousin a sideways glance. “Try not to take it all in at once.”

Dudley just continued to gawk, clearly enamored by the wonders of magic. “Come on, Big D,” Harry said as he drew up near him. “Let’s go get you some reading material.”

“Books…?” Dudley couldn’t help asking out in a deadpan. Harry couldn’t help chuckling at his cousin’s expense.

“Trust me,” Harry said, guiding him towards Flourish and Blotts. “Even you’ll find a lot of these books interesting. Besides, how can we…do our thing, if you don’t understand most of what’s happening and why?”

Despite the look of constipated disgust on his face at the thought of reading, Dudley nodded in understanding to his cousin’s reasoning.

________________________________________

And thus began their daily visits to Diagon Alley after the coppers and other government officials dealt with the comatose Dursleys and the ensuing legal paperwork. Harry rented a pair of rooms at The Leaky Cauldron for the both of them to stay in during the evenings. He would quiz Dudley on the various magical subjects that he forced himself to read, ranging from basic history to the different types of spells, curses, hexes, and jinxes, as well as the different effects they possessed. The three curses that Harry first introduced him to were of course the Unforgivables, which Dudley made a point of memorizing. They would also occasionally spend a brief time exploring and taking in the sights of the Alley together.

When they inevitably stopped to take a peek inside Ollivander’s wand shop, a particular subject arose that Harry hadn’t considered until Dudley asked it. How could Dudley help Harry in defeating Voldemort if he couldn’t use magic himself? This was a topic they discussed at great length later that evening in the relative safety of their rooms. Dudley assumed, with a fair amount of accuracy, that many Muggle methods of combat were ill-suited to face-off against a fully-trained Wizard or Witch. Granted, Harry was quite sure that a gun could still kill the Witch or Wizard in question like anything else if the shooter managed to get a clean shot.

“Can’t you just make another lightsaber for me to use?” Dudley asked, the first question asked once they were back inside their apartment and alone.

“It’s not that easy, Dudley,” Harry said sternly. “It’s not as if I can just collect a bunch of bits and pieces, and make a lightsaber out of them in a day or two. It takes a lot of time, energy, magic, and precision to put one together. And that’s not even taking into account the focusing gem.” He took out his lightsaber and held it up, showing the glowing gem that was inside it. “I had to create this gem by using a very special potion that needed a large amount of my own magic to form. In a sense, this gem is a small, physical representation of my own magic. So, any gems I make will be attuned to me. And while that may not seem important, I still don’t entirely understand how such a thing will affect you if you used something that wasn’t perfectly attuned to you. For all we know, it could possibly even kill you because you couldn’t control it…or lost control of yourself.”

Dudley frowned deeply at that, obviously not liking the answer. But he made no further comment on it. “What about some other kind of weapon? There must be something that I could use. If you can’t help me, then what can i do? Shoot them with Dad’s shotgun?”

“Shotgun... Gun... No, Dudley, not a gun.” Harry smiled as a random thought struck him.

“Harry?” Dudley asked as his cousin fiddled with his lightsaber.

“To the best of my knowledge, any Muggle…er, normal person like you, who has ever tried to use a magical item…It usually didn’t turn out too well for them.” Harry admitted. 

“But…maybe I could make you something…special.”

“Like what?”

A slight grin pulled at Harry’s face. “How about a blaster rifle?”

“Blaster rifle…?” Then he caught the reference. “You mean like in Star Wars? Those blasters?”

“Exactly!” Harry said, a sense of excitement rising up in him as fresh ideas began to churn and twist about in his head. “It wouldn’t be like with a lightsaber. But it could definitely be helpful. And I’d have to somehow create the blasterbolts…” Abruptly standing to his feet, Harry grinned as he said, “I going to go collect some basic materials and get started experimenting. Try not to get into any trouble.”

Dudley just snorted as he sat down on the bed and grabbed one of Harry’s old schoolbooks to read again. He knew he’d be rereading these books many times in the coming weeks and months, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a head start on them now while he still had the free time to. Once he was accepted into the military academy, he wouldn’t have any free time.  
________________________________________

A week had passed since the cousins’ first arrival in the Alley. While Dudley was largely distracted by the police investigations, lawyers, bankers, and a wide variety of other legal matters in the wake of his parents’ sudden and unexpected ‘comatose states’, Harry continued his research and experiments into creating a blaster rifle. In some ways, his creation of the lightsaber gave him a basis on what to do and how it could work. But at the same time, he also had to start from scratch, using completely new materials and devising new runic arrays specifically for the to-be-blaster rifle. He wasn’t even going to attempt to find a potion solution or something similar to be used as the medium for the ammunition until he reached Hogwarts and had some proper supplies and equipment he could use.

However, that didn’t stop him from constantly browsing the foul-smelling shop that sold potion ingredients. And it was during one of those numerous searches that he came across some quite unexpected discoveries. He had been browsing through a thick booklet of the many different types of potions that could be made using certain rare, powerful, or common ingredients when he found two particular potions that immediately drew his interest.

One was a weight-loss potion that could help a person lose large amounts of fat or flab without the need for months of painful exercises and diets. Given Dudley’s newfound determination to join the military, this potion would most assuredly come in very handy. The second potion was much more personal in nature to Harry. It could correct his terrible eyes, giving him perfect vision without the need for his glasses anymore. He couldn’t even begin to count how many times he’d gotten into trouble because of unexpected impacts knocking his glasses off his face. As such, Harry had temporarily put aside his new project and purchased the long list of ingredients for both potions and began brewing both that very night.

“What is it?” Dudley asked, a disgusted look crossing his face as he held the large silver goblet carefully in both hands. He couldn’t help turning his face away from the absolutely foul smelling concoction that the goblet held within.

“Think of it as the ultimate diet drink,” Harry said, grinning proudly and drawing some humor from Dudley’s reactions to the smell despite his best attempts not to. “You drink that, and you’re suddenly six hundred kilograms lighter.”

“What?!” Dudley asked, looking sharply over at him. Then his face grimaced again in disgust. “But why does it smell like this?”

“The only ones that smell or taste good are poisons,” Harry quoted wisely. “Trust me: the more disgusting it is, the better it is for you…usually.”

“If I drink this, I’m gonna barf all over the place!”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll sharing your pain,” Harry said, moving over to the desk in the corner of the room and grabbing a simple pewter goblet of his own. “Mine is to improve my eyesight.”

Dudley raised his brow at that, clearly trying to picture his cousin without his distinctive round glasses. Then he looked back down at the potion he held and grimaced yet again. “Do I have to?”

“It would probably help a great deal for getting you into the academy,” Harry pointed out softly. “Not to be mean or anything, but you could definitely stand to lose a few hundred kilograms or so.”

Dudley looked up sharply again, his eyes glaring slightly. After a moment, he grimaced one final time before raising the goblet and drinking the foul liquid as quickly as he could, trying to keep as little of it off of his tongue as he possibly could. Not that it did much good. He barely managed to swallow the last little bit before throwing the goblet violently aside and falling to his hands and knees, moaning piteously. His stomach immediately began throbbing and aching as the potion began to take effect, soon spreading throughout his entire body. Dudley collapsed onto his side, shaking and trembling violently, loud wails of agony coming from his mouth as he was helpless to do anything but endure it.

Harry was right down there with him as well. But his torment was much more focused. His whole head, brain, and especially his eyes all burned with the heat of an oven, threatening to burst into flame. His hands rising up to his face, Harry found his skin scorching hot to the touch and he couldn’t help but cry out in pain right next to Dudley. After ten long, excruciating minutes of agony, both teenagers were finally silenced as their respective potions ran their course and began to wear off.

Weakly pushing himself up to his hands and knees, Dudley reached up and grabbed the bedside table. Hoisting himself up to his feet was a chore because his legs and knees were shaking violently, still somewhat recovering from whatever had happened to him. Grasping the tabletop with both hands, Dudley steadied himself, breathing deeply as he waited for his body to stop shaking. Finally, after several moments, he felt his strength returning to his body.

Looking up into the mirror that was on the wall in front of him, Dudley let out a loud yell of surprise when he saw the face that was staring back at him. “I’m thin!” Raising his hands up to his face, he began patting his face in disbelief and rising excitement. “My cheekbones! I can see my cheekbones!”

He stumbled back a few steps as the realization that the potion had indeed worked as Harry said it would began to set in. As he did, he noticed that his clothing was hanging extremely loosely upon his frame. The only reason that his pants hadn’t fallen to the floor was because of the suspenders he wore underneath his shirt were holding them up.

Grabbing his torso and feeling his stomach in rising exhilaration, he cried out, “I’m thin! My stomach’s gone! I can feel my ribs! I’m thin! I’m thin!” As he was looking down at his greatly flattened stomach, he saw something that he hadn’t seen in an admittedly long time. “Holy fucking shit! I can see my dick!”

“Calm down, ya wanker,” Harry called from where he was sitting with his back against the bedframe. “I bet all of Diagon Alley can hear you.”

“But I’m thin!” Dudley cried out again, turning and beaming at his cousin with wide and truly honest delight. “I’m actually thin!”

Harry just snorted at his cousin’s hysteria, his green eyes unencumbered by glasses for the first time in more than a decade.

________________________________________  
Two weeks later

Despite his very limited scope and exposure to Wizarding homes, Harry could state with absolute certainty that the Black family home at Number 12 Grimmauld Place was the dreariest, filthiest, and most unwelcoming he’d likely ever come across in his entire life. He had only spent a week in the place and he already loathed it. Between the many hundreds of Dark artifacts, cursed items, the shrieking portrait of Sirius’s mother, and the ghastly Kreacher trying to steal back all the items they tried to dispose of, there was truly nothing remotely good about the house itself. The only positive thing about it was the people he met inside it: members of Dumbledore’s vigilante order against Voldemort like the Metamorphmagus Tonks, the Auror Shacklebolt, the real Moody; the Weasley family; and most importantly his best friends.

Needless to say, the Order of the Phoenix were in quite a state of panic and hysteria when he was finally brought in. They had heard the news that the Dursleys had been left comatose, their young son and sole heir joining a Hitwizard type of school, and Harry mysteriously disappearing for two weeks straight afterwards. Harry told them a slightly edited version of the truth. That he and Dudley had been attacked by Dementors but had made it back to the house safely, only to be attacked again later that night, which was when his relatives were Kissed and he somehow ‘blasted them to pieces’ in retaliation. The Order was quite nervous of the possibility that Dementors were already defecting to Voldemort’s side and all of them had been confused as to how the soul-suckers managed to penetrate the protective wards that Dumbledore had likely put up around the house (which was news to Harry). In a strange twist of fate, Harry was actually secretly relieved that Mundungus Fletcher had abandoned his post of supervising Harry shortly before the attack. That meant that his creation and use of his lightsaber was still largely a secret.

It was late in the evening now that Harry was finally able to drag Hermione, Ron, and Sirius away to have a private discussion. Sirius had brought them up into his mother’s old bedroom, which he had apparently decided to house the smelly, restless, and messy Buckbeak the Hippogriff. After placing silencing spells around the room to prevent eavesdropping, at Harry’s request, Sirius finally turned to the dark-haired teenager and said, “Okay, lad, care to share what really happened?”

“Where’s your glasses, mate?” Ron asked. “Lose them? Broke them again?”

“Ron, let him speak!” Hermione ordered, giving him a slight nudge in the gut with her elbow before returning her attention to Harry.

“Ron, Hermione, remember that ‘secret project’ I’d been working on last year?” Harry asked with a knowing grin.

At the reminder, both of them nodded with slightly pouting expressions on their faces, Hermione more so than Ron. They had been trying to figure out what he was working on so intensely that he even occasionally forgot about the dangerous tournament he’d been forcefully entered into, but he always clammed up and refused to tell them. He privately admitted to himself that he didn’t tell them about it because he didn’t want to humiliate himself on the likely chance his invention wouldn’t work. Plus he didn’t want to run the risk of having Hermione’s logic trying to dissuade and discourage him.

“Well, I finished it a little before the Final Task,” he said, his grin dropping at the memory of Cedric’s death resurfacing. Quickly shaking it from his thoughts, he continued, “I had it on me when the Dementors attacked my cousin Dudley and I. With it, I was able to kill them.”

“WHAT?!” all three of his companions demanded loudly, disbelief plainly obvious in their voices.

“You killed a Dementor?!” Sirius demanded, rushing forward and grabbing Harry by his shoulders, looking directly into his eyes as though searching for the answers. “HOW?!”

“Dementors are supposed to impossible to kill!” Hermione loudly declared in a rapid tone of voice with absolute certainty. “Even the mightiest of Wizards and Witches have been unable to actually kill them! And the only spell that actually affects them is the Patronus Charm! How could you possibly—”

“Hermione! Breathe!” Harry ordered, speaking louder than her to be heard. “And, if you guys’ll give me a moment, I’ll tell you!”

After several long moments of allowing them to calm down, Harry reached down and unhooked the hilt that was hanging from his belt strap while digging out the emitter shroud from his pocket. His friends and godfather watched in confusion and mounting anticipation as he screwed the two pieces together and took a few steps backwards from them. Holding up his lightsaber hilt, he grinned knowingly as they all stared at it with varying degrees of confusion. “This is what I was making last year, and how I was able to kill the Dementors.”

With a snap-hiss, he ignited his lightsaber, causing all three to flinch back in surprise. But while Ron and Sirius just studied the light blade with a type of curious perplexity, Hermione’s eyes widened significantly as she gasped out in shock.

“Harry!” she uttered. “Is—Is that—? Is that a—?”

“Lightsaber?” he finished for her, grinning even wider. He nodded. “Yup.”

“What’s a lightsaber?” came the predictable question from Ron.

“A fictional weapon used by a monastic order of warriors in a science fiction-fantasy story that Muggles like to watch on television,” was Hermione’s automatic and rather distracted answer. Her eyes still locked upon the blade, as though trapped in some kind of trance-like state.

“What?” Ron and Sirius both asked.

“A type of magic sword that many Muggles wish were real,” Harry clarified, adjusting his grip on the hilt and holding the weapon out for Hermione to take hold of. Seeing the unresponsive girl was refusing to take it, Ron reached forward to take it, his hand heading for the blade itself. Harry quickly pulled the saber back out of reach. At Ron’s questioning and somewhat hurt expression, he quickly said, “The blade can cut anything like magic. Take the hilt.”

Ron nodded and, much more cautiously, reached forward and took hold of the weapon’s hilt. Lifting the weapon up, he looked closer at the blade, with Sirius walking up next to him to examine it better himself. “It’s so light,” Ron observed. “Like the blade isn’t even there.”

“Which is part of the reason it’s so dangerous,” Hermione said, finally starting to come out of her stupor. “Unlike all other weapons, there’s no counterweight on a lightsaber. With its ability to cut through anything, a person could easily cut their own limbs off if they’re not paying attention.”

“It can cut through anything?” Sirius repeated, looking between the lightsaber, Hermione, and Harry.

“Well, I still haven’t quite finished testing it,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “But it definitely cut the Dementors apart!”

“How did you manage to make this?!” Hermione finally shrieked, turning her full attention onto Harry. “You have to tell me! I want to know! Did you document it?! PLEASE TELL ME YOU DOCUMENTED THIS!”

“Er…not really,” Harry admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “All I really did was draw up a few sketches, make a few notes and lists of ideas. I didn’t see the point of trying to ‘document it’ since I wasn’t sure if it’d really work. I didn’t want to record something that might embarrass me later if it went wrong.”

“But, Harry, if you didn’t write down what you did wrong, how could you be sure what you did next wasn’t just some variation of what you did before?! Thomas Edison documented every one of his failures before he managed to succeed in making the light bulb! How could you be so lax?!” She asked in horror. “You are going to teach me how to make one!”

Harry didn’t doubt her for a second.

“You said it can cut through anything?” Ron asked, a strange expression of hopeful yearning and frightened anxiety on his face. “Really?”

“It’s partly made of plasma, so it’s possible,” Harry said. Seeing Ron and Sirius’s confusion, he added, “Basically, really, really hot ‘solid fire’.”

“Let’s test that,” Sirius said, taking out his wand and conjuring several large objects. The blocks were all different materials like wood, steel, granite, marble, and he ever transfigured a rotted floorboard into a pig.

Ron glanced between the different blocks and the saber, finally looking over at Harry questioningly. Harry shrugged and waved his hand in permission. Smiling slightly, Ron first approached the block of wood. Making sure no one was near him, he gave a tentative swing, apparently only really expecting it to hit against the edge of the wooden block and bounce off like a normal sword blade. Instead, the saber easily sliced through several inches of the wood before Ron caught himself and jumped back in surprise, revealing a darkened slash mark in the wood where the blade had been.

“No way!” Ron said, disbelief obvious in his voice. “I wasn’t even really trying and look at it!”

“Well, I’d say the wood is a positive test result,” Hermione remarked in a dry tone, far from impressed or surprised. Moving forward, she carefully took the blade from Ron. “My turn.”

Turning to the steel block as Sirius distractedly vanished the wood, she gave a much harder swing than Ron. Unlike with the wood, the steel beam was visibly stronger and much more able to resist the saber blade. Hermione’s swing was slowed significantly several inches into the beam, reduced to little more than a slow pull. Rather than cut the beam all the way through, she retracted the lightsaber halfway, deactivating the saber and watching the molten steel slowly cool and harden again. “Interesting.”

The granite block proved to be the toughest to cut through since it was both heavier and denser than the steel had been. But the saber did manage to make a small amount of damage to the stone after several long moments of exposure. By contrast, the marble was like the midway point between the wood and steel, slightly harder to cut through but not enough to slow or stop a dedicated power attack, as Sirius so happily demonstrated after several tries while wearing a shit-eating grin.

Finally reaching the pig, all of them just started at the oinking creature for a long moment. “I guess it goes without saying that it could kill the pig,” Harry said quietly, no one objecting to his assumption as he deactivated the saber.

“Now I know for sure where you get your brains from,” Sirius said, staring at Harry as though seeing him for the first time. “James was many things, but an inventor was not one of them. This…weapon could be worth thousands of galleons! Bloody hell, this is worth more than gold. It could introduce a whole new level of magical combat!”

“Exactly,” Harry said. “A new level where old Tom won’t have the default advantage anymore!”

“I wonder if the lightsaber can also do what it does in the movies,” Hermione muttered to herself.

“What’s that?” Ron asked, curious to know what else this strange new weapon could do.

“Harry, one last experiment,” Hermione said, before looking over at Sirius. “Could you try to stun him?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, I get it!” Harry said, catching onto what Hermione was hinting towards. Quickly reigniting his saber, he held it protectively in front of his body, staring and waiting for Sirius to attack. “Come on, Sirius. Take a shot at me!”

Though confused, the man complied and fired a Stunner at his godson. He and Ron watched in shock as Harry just barely managed to maneuver his lightsaber and catch the spell on the blade, sending the bolt of magic ricocheting off to the side and impacting the far wall. As Harry and Hermione were looking over at the wall, Ron and Sirius were visibly gawking. The lightsaber could also deflect and redirect spells?! Forget what he said earlier, this wasn’t just a new level but a whole new realm of unexplored magical combat!

“Hey, Sirius, what are those over there?” Harry asked, staring at something he could see on the wall, drawing the man’s attention to where he was looking.

Sirius blinked in surprise at what he saw. There, lining the wall where his stunner had impacted, was a pair of shelves that ran the whole length of the wall and jam-packed with books, scrolls, and parchment. How had he never noticed that before? “Don’t know. I could’ve sworn I cleared this room before I brought Buckbeak in here.” Then, as Harry sheathed his blade, the bookshelves inexplicably disappeared. All of them just blinked in surprise when they saw that.

“No way!” Sirius muttered, somewhat shocked.

“Well, I guess that answers that question,” Ron muttered under his breath, realizing that they’d just discovered yet another ability of the lightsaber. The ability to reveal what was hidden under magic. Looking over at Harry, he said, “Mate, how long does it take to make one of those?” When Harry glanced at him, he just grinned embarrassedly, rubbing the back of his neck as his ears turned slightly red. “I think I want one too.”

“We must experiment!” Sirius suddenly loudly declared, a strange excitement rising to surface in him. This strongly reminded him of his dearly beloved years back in Hogwarts and experimenting with potions and spells with the Marauders. He suddenly felt twenty years younger! Harry just chuckled as he reignited the lightsaber and went along with Sirius as they tried to figure out the limits of his lightsaber’s ‘revealing’ power.

Several minutes later, he locked the blade on and set the lightsaber down on the block of marble that Sirius still hadn’t yet vanished. With the proper illumination, all four of them moved over to clean and clear the bookshelves. As he was peering across the various titles of the books, one particular leather-bound book caught his eye for some reason. Cautiously taking ahold of it and pulling it out gently, in case there were any unpleasant curses waiting, he lowered the book down and quietly read the title.

‘The Art of Sorcery’ by Sir Henry Morgan. For some reason, he felt…compelled to take this book.


	3. Return to Hogwarts

The Lightsaber  
By: Tellemicus Sundance  
#03: Return to Hogwarts

September 1, 1995

The train was gathering speed, the houses outside of the window flashed past and they swerved where they stood. The trio of friends had just managed to catch the train on time, but still needed to find a compartment, or at least Harry did. Ron and Hermione reluctantly shuffled off to the Prefect carriage, Hermione trying to give a feeble reassurance that they’d probably be allowed to come join him later on. But the reassurance didn’t help much. He felt an odd sense of loss since he’d never traveled on the Hogwarts Express without Ron.

He and Ginny struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. Harry could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors, pointing him out. After he had met this behavior in five consecutive carriages he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a lying show-off he was. He wondered bleakly whether the people now staring and whispering believed in the stories.

In the very last carriage, they met Neville Longbottom. Neville’s face was shining with the effort to pull his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor. “Hi, Harry…Hi, Ginny…Everywhere’s full…I can’t find a seat.”

“What are you talking about?” Ginny asked, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. “There’s room in this one, there’s only Loony Lovegood in here—”

Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.

“Don’t be silly,” Ginny laughed. “She’s all right.” She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside it. Harry and Neville followed soon after.

The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her ear for safekeeping, that she’d chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside-down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on Harry. Then she simply nodded.

“Thanks,” Ginny said, smiling.

Harry and Neville stowed the three trunks and Hedwig’s cage in the luggage rack and sat down. The girl called Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She didn’t seem to need to blink as much as a normal person. She stared at Harry for a long while, even after he’d taken the seat opposite her and now wished he hadn’t.

“Have a good summer, Luna?” Ginny asked.

“Yes,” Luna said dreamily, without taking her eyes off Harry. “Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. You’re Harry Potter.”

“I know I am,” Harry said, causing Neville to chuckle.

Turning her gaze to Neville, Luna finally blinked and then narrowed her eyes faintly, as though trying to see something. “I don’t know who you are, but…a touch of destiny has happened today.”

“What?” both boys asked, blinking and staring at her in confusion. But Luna merely retreated back behind her magazine, not sharing any further words. Looking at each other for a moment, both boys shrugged in confusion. Harry stood up and pulled out the old leather-bound book he’d been cradling under his arm the whole time, opening it to its front page and started reading.

‘The Art of Sorcery is the ability to draw in the ambient magical energy that surrounds and is created by living beings. Drawing this latent energy inside the Sorcerer’s body, using   
it to enhance their magical power and even their physical strengths to certain degrees.’ Harry read from the book he had taken from Grimmauld Place. ‘When a Sorcerer is suitably trained, they can sense the different auras given off by others and can detect when a person or creature is nearby, even if they’re actively trying to remain hidden. Luminous beings that shine with depths of their power cannot remain hidden to a Sorcerer, not matter the magic they use.’

“Empower them…? This sounds… a lot like…the Force,” Harry muttered to himself. ‘Could…Could George Lucas be a Sorcerer too?’

“What does, Harry?” Ginny asked from where she was seated next to Luna.

“This book here,” Harry said, turning it slightly so he could share the text with her and Neville who had peered over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of it himself. “It talks about using the magical energies of the environment to increase a Wizard’s power. Look here, ‘Luminous beings that shine with power’. That sounds a lot like the Force in the Muggle television movies called ‘Star Wars.’ I wonder if the creator of the movies knew about this.”

“I don’t get it,” Ginny said, looking very confused. “What’s ‘Star Wars’ exactly?”

And thus began a very long discussion between about Star Wars, with Harry having to draw a lot comparisons from old world technologies to help Neville, Ginny, and even Luna to better grasp what he was trying to explain. Thus, the Millennium Falcon became a sailboat, the Death Stars were castles that could shoot huge Avada Kedavra beams to destroy whole cities, stormtroopers and blaster rifles became Death Eaters, the Jedi were like Aurors, and the Force was like magic without needing a wand.

Needless to say, Harry was pretty sure that his listeners were probably very interested in seeing the actual movies, just so they could understand his descriptions better. Harry was more than eager to resume his reading by the end of it. But sadly he was interrupted again shortly into it when Ron and Hermione finally arrived. The two of them quickly settled in with the group and before long things were going smoothly. Harry decided to put the book aside to read later.

________________________________________

The four long House tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other Houses, eyeing one another’s new haircuts and robes. Again, Harry noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as he passed. He gritted his teeth and tried to act as though he neither noticed nor cared.

Luna had drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindor’s, Ginny was hailed by some fellow Fourth Years and left to sit with them. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. Parvati and Lavender gave Harry airy, overly friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second beforehand. And if his new eyes weren’t fooling him, both of them gazed at him a touch longer than was necessary.

He had more important thing to worry about, however. Turning his gaze towards the staff table, he looked over the heads of the many students to try and catch a glimpse of a friend who was missing for some reason. But Hagrid wasn’t seated at the staff table either. “He’s not there.”

Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need. Hagrid’s size made him instantly obvious in any lineup. Sounding slightly anxious, Ron said, “He can’t have left.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Harry said firmly.

“You don’t think he’s…hurt or anything, do you?” Hermione asked uneasily.

“No,” Harry said at once.

“But where is he, then?”

There was a pause, then Harry said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati, and Lavender couldn’t hear, “Maybe he’s not back yet. You know—from his mission—the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore.”

“Yeah…Yeah, that’ll be it,” Ron said, sounding reassured. But Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid’s absence.

“Who’s that?” she asked sharply, pointing toward the middle of the staff table.

Harry’s eyes followed hers. They lit first upon Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore’s head was inclined toward the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Harry thought, like somebody’s maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and he saw a pallid, toad-like face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.

“Don’t know,” Harry admitted. “Maybe she’s the new Defense teacher?”

“Nice cardigan,” Ron remarked with a smirk.

A few moments later, Professor Grubbly-Plank appeared behind the staff table and worked her way over to the place that was normally Hagrid’s seat. That meant that the First Years must have crossed the lake and reached the castle. And sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the entrance hall opened and a long line of scared-looking eleven-year-olds entered, following Professor McGonagall.

After an unusually long song from the Sorting Hat, followed by the Sorting itself, and a very satisfying meal, Dumbledore got to his feet to address the school at large. Talking ceased immediately as all turned to face the headmaster. Harry was feeling pleasantly drowsy now and wanted nothing more than to rush over to his waiting bed. But he forced himself to pay attention as the headmaster began to speak.

“Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices. First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students—and a few of our older students out to know by now too.” Harry, Ron, and Hermione all exchanged smirks at that last remark. “Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things. All of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch’s office door.”

“We have had two changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons. We are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause. Dumbledore hadn’t said for how long Grubbly-Plank would be teaching, which was very distressing for Harry, Ron, and Hermione as their worry for Hagrid grew slightly.

“Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the—” Dumbledore broke off, looking inquiringly at Professor Umbridge.

As she was not much taller standing than sitting, there was a moment when nobody understood why Dumbledore had stopped speaking, but then Professor Umbridge said, “Hem, hem,” and it became clear that she had gotten to her feet and was intending to make a speech. Dumbledore only looked taken aback for a moment, then he sat back down smartly and looked alertly at Professor Umbridge as though he desired nothing better than to listen to her talk. Professor Sprout’s eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair and Professor McGonagall’s mouth was as thin as Harry had ever seen it. No new teacher had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Many of the students were smirking; this woman obviously didn’t know how things were done at Hogwarts.

“Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome,” Professor Umbridge simpered. Her voice was high-pitched, breathy, and little-girlish. For some inexplicable reason, Harry felt a sudden and very powerful rush of intense dislike towards her that he couldn’t explain to himself. All he knew was that he loathed everything about her, from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan. She gave another little throat-clearing cough (“Hem, hem”) and continued. “Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!” Her smile revealed very pointed teeth. “And to see such happy little face looking back at me!”

There were no smiling faces looking at her. Mostly because all of the students couldn’t believe that they were getting addressed by her as though they were five-year-olds. Professor Umbridge paid that little detail no mind as she continued with her speech.

“The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young Witches and Wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching.”

Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back. As the toad-like lady continued her speech, Harry’s attentiveness ebbed. The quiet that always filled the Hall when Dumbledore was speaking was breaking up as students put their heads together, whispering and giggling. Professor Umbridge didn’t seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Harry had the impression that a full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have plowed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively. Hermione seemed to be thinking very hard on Umbridge’s words, and judging by her expression, she didn’t like what she was hearing.

After several long minutes, Dumbledore stood back up when Umbridge finally ended her speech. Though the staff gave a short, quiet applause, very few students joined in since they hadn’t even noticed the speech had ended. At least, not until Dumbledore spoke up and regained the students’ attentions again. “Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating. Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held…”

“Yes, it certainly was illuminating,” Hermione said in a low, almost dangerous voice.

“You’re not telling me you enjoyed it?” Ron asked quietly, turning a glazed face upon Hermione. “That was about the dullest speech I’ve ever heard, and I grew up with Percy.”

“I said ‘illuminating’, not enjoyable,” Hermione pointed out. “It explained a lot.”

“Did it?” Harry asked in surprise. “Sounded like a load of waffle to me.”

“There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle,” she said. “Stuff like ‘progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged’ and ‘pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited’.”

“What does that mean?” Ron asked impatiently.

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Hermione said ominously. “It means the Ministry’s interfering at Hogwarts.”

Now Harry knew for a fact why he’d taken such a strong, seemingly irrational dislike to the new professor so quickly.

________________________________________

History of Magic was by common consent the most boring subject ever devised by Wizardkind. The ghostly Professor Binns had a wheezy, droning voice that was almost guaranteed to cause severe drowsiness within ten minutes, five in warm weather. He never varied the form of their lessons, but lectured them without pausing while they took notes. Or, more accurately, gazed sleepily into space. Harry and Ron had only managed to scrape passes in the subject by copying Hermione’s notes before exams. She alone seemed able to resist the soporific power of Binn’s voice.

Since he knew what to expect, Harry didn’t even bother trying to pay attention. He just pulled out his leather book on Sorcery and began reading again, quickly becoming deeply immersed by what he found inside. As he had first thought Sorcery was extremely similar the Star Wars portrayal of the Force. But there was a fair number of differences that Harry spotted as well. Not necessarily in how the ambient magic affected the Sorcerer and could be used for, but in the tone of the text itself.

It was clearly written by an experienced Sorcerer (which Harry guessed the infamous pirate must’ve been), but there were certain phrases and the way in which Sir Morgan described using Sorcery. Little keywords that made Harry begin to realize that Sir Henry Morgan had also been a Dark Wizard. He spoke of how the Sorcerer had to absorb the magic, shape and break it, mold it to fit the Wizard’s desire and intent, how the absorbed magic could potentially amplify a Sorcerer’s emotions and thus increase his strength and connection to the ambient magic. But what really hit it home was the simple phrase that Morgan spoke of when he was explaining how to first touch and access the ambient magic through the use of an obscure potion.

‘Anger is a Wizard’s greatest strength. And the stronger our anger, the greater we can summon and control the ambient magics.’ Despite himself, Harry couldn’t help agreeing with that opinion. It was true after all. Every time he’d ever cast a spell when he was especially angry or had some strong emotion powering him, he’d always been able to use his magic much more easily and cast surprisingly stronger spells.

All-too-soon the class ended and Harry was forced to stow his book away into his bag. It was only as he was gathering up his things that he realized that Hermione and Ron were both glancing at him with questioning gazes in their eyes. They knew he’d been distracted all throughout class, and they were reluctantly curious by what it was. Harry could help quietly chuckling at them in embarrassment. For so long he’d been keeping secrets from them (not necessarily earth-shattering, in his opinion) out of habit to avoid embarrassment or discouragement, but it seemed that they had started to catch onto him doing so. He’d have to fix that sooner or later, he realized.

________________________________________

Defense Against the Dark Arts had always been a favorite of Harry’s. And yet now, he could clearly see that his love of the subject was in serious danger of a grisly and untimely death. All at the hands of a Ministry pawn who’d been forcefully placed into the position. Partway into the class, after having been forced to study the theory of defense, the entirety of the class had more or less taken a much more active interest in the verbal sparring match that had been understandably instigate by Hermione.

“I’ve got a query about your course aims,” Hermione had started out, causing Professor Umbridge (and admittedly most of the class) to raise her eyebrows.

“And your name is…?”

“Hermione Granger,” she supplied.

“Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully,” Umbridge said in a voice of determined sweetness.

“Well, I don’t,” Hermione said bluntly. “There’s nothing written up there about using defensive spells.”

There was a short silence in which many members of the class turned their heads to frown at the three course aims still written on the blackboard.

“Using defensive spells?” Professor Umbridge repeated with a little laugh. “Why, I can’t imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren’t expecting to be attacked during class?”

“We’re not going to use magic?” Ron ejaculated loudly.

“Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr.—?”

“Weasley,” Ron said, thrusting his hand into the air.

Professor Umbridge, smiling still more widely, turned her back on him. Harry and Hermione immediately raised their hands too. Professor Umbridge’s pouchy eye’s lingered on Harry for a long moment before she addressed Hermione. “Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?”

“Yes,” Hermione said. “Surely the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?”

“Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?” Professor Umbridge asked in her falsely sweet voice.

“No, but—”

“Well then, I’m afraid you are not qualified to decide what the ‘whole point’ of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way—”

“What use is that?” Harry asked loudly. “If we’re going to be attacked, it would be in a—”

“Hand, Mr. Potter!” Professor Umbridge sang in that sweet voice that was really starting to grate on his nerves. Harry didn’t even bother trying to raise his hand as the Professor promptly turned away from him anyway. Instead, she found herself suddenly bludgeoned by several other people who had raised their hands. “And your name is?”

“Dean Thomas.”

“Well, Mr. Thomas?”

“Well, it’s like Harry said, isn’t it?” Dean said. “If we’re going to be attacked, it won’t be risk-free—”

“I repeat,” Professor Umbridge said, smiling in a very irritating fashion at Dean. “Do you expect to be attacked during my classes?”

“No, but—”

And thus Professor Umbridge exposed her true self to the class and school as a whole. She openly condemned her predecessors, even calling Lupin ‘an extremely dangerous half-breed’. She bluntly refused to teach or allow them to practice any of the necessary spells needed to pass their OWLs, claiming that studying theory was enough to guarantee a perfect first attempt at any spell cast. All the hypocrisy and her all-but-stated desire to have them all fail perhaps the single most important exams of their lives quickly stoked Harry’s already volatile temper into a raging fire. Until, finally, he just couldn’t hold his silence anymore.

“And what good’s theory going to be in the real world?” he demanded loudly, his fist in the air.

Professor Umbridge looked up. “This is a school, Mr. Potter, not the real world.”

“So we’re not supposed to be prepared for what’s waiting out there?”

“There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, a dangerous tone in his voice.

“Who do you imagine want to attack children like yourselves?” inquired Professor Umbridge in a horribly honeyed voice.

“Hmm, let’s think…” he said back in a mock thoughtful voice. “Maybe Lord Voldemort?”

Ron gasped, Lavender Brown uttered a little scream, Neville slipped sideways off his stool. Professor Umbridge, however, didn’t flinch. She was staring Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face. “Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter.”

The classroom was silent and still. Everyone was staring at either Umbridge or Harry.

“Now, let me make a few things quite plain,” Professor Umbridge stood up and leaned toward them, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk. “You have been told that a certain Dark Wizard has returned from the dead—”

“He wasn’t dead,” Harry said angrily. “But, yeah, he’s returned!”

“Mr.-Potter-you-have-already-lost-your-House-ten-points-do-not-make-matters-worse-for-yourself,” Professor Umbridge said in one breath without looking at him. “As I was saying, you have been informed that a certain Dark Wizard is at large once again. This is a lie.”

“It is not a lie!” Harry snapped. “I saw him! I fought him!”

“Detention, Mr. Potter!” Professor Umbridge declared quite triumphantly, as though fulfilling a goal she’d set for herself. “Tomorrow evening, five o’clock. My office. I repeat, this is a lie. The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any Dark Wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming with fibs about reborn Dark Wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am your friend. And now, you will kindly continue your reading. Page five, ‘Basics for Beginners.’“

Professor Umbridge sat down behind her desk again. Harry, however, stood up. Everyone was staring at him. Seamus looked half-scared, half-fascinated.

“Harry, no!” Hermione hissed at him warningly, tugging at his sleeve, but Harry jerked his arm out of her reach.

“So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead on his own accord, did he?” Harry asked, his voice shaking from his barely restrained anger.

There was a collective intake of breath from the class, for none of them, apart from Ron and Hermione, had ever heard Harry talk about what happened on the night that Cedric had died. They stared avidly from Harry to Professor Umbridge, who had raised her eyes and was staring at him without a trace of a fake smile on her face.

“Cedric Diggory’s death was a tragic accident,” she said coldly.

“It was murder,” Harry corrected hotly. He could feel himself shaking. He had hardly talked to anyone about this, least of all thirty eagerly listening classmates. “Voldemort killed him, and you know it.”

If he’d had a cooler head on his shoulders at that time, Harry would’ve known that she had been baiting him all along. But just the same, his temper got the better of him and a wide kaleidoscope of thoughts, accusation, raging theories, and random ideas were racing through his mind as Professor Umbridge sent him with a note to Professor McGonagall. Thoughts like how Voldemort was a seemingly all-powerful Dark Wizard. The willful blindness of the Ministry to Voldemort’s return was now being used to actively sabotage him, his friends, and his classmates when they needed defensive skills the most. That Voldemort was a genius and expert in the Dark Arts and had 50 years to refine and expand his powers in it. How he, Harry, had survived thus far on pure dumb luck. In a simple one-on-one death match between the two of them, Voldemort would swat him aside like a fly on the wall. That even with his new lightsaber throwing the odds a little better in his favor, he was still horribly outclassed in every manner.

When he reached McGonagall’s office door, he had had a slight epiphany. He needed to learn something powerful, something so exotic that even Voldemort would’ve have learned and mastered it. And, even if it was written by a Dark Wizard, perhaps the book on Sorcery was his ticket to finally evening out the odds by giving him a wild card to throw at the Dark Lord?

________________________________________

September 10, 1995

If ever there was a time that Harry truly loved the weekend, it was now. The homework given by the professors was simply massive and only continued to pile higher. His weeklong detentions for that evil toad-faced excuse for a Defense Professor only compounded things. And practically having the whole school believing the rubbish that the Ministry was having the Daily Prophet print was just the icing on the cake. In all, his first week back to Hogwarts was a horrible experience with his temper very, very close to the surface.  
It was Sunday and Harry had finally managed to get away from everyone and have some personal time. As such, he had claimed a long deserted classroom in the unused dungeons under the North Tower as his private sanctuary. Thanks to his Invisibility Cloak and laying some Notice-Me-Not runes around his chosen room, not even the Slytherins knew of his presence down in their domain. No better place to hide than right under your enemy’s nose after all.

Now he doing something that was both arguably dangerous and utterly foolhardy. He had set up his workshop again, complete with his extra potion supplies, several books on advanced Runes, Transfiguration, Charms, Wards, a large collection of junk metal and plastics he’d collected back in London, and a bulletin board that he’d be pinning his various designs and ideas on. He was finally able to continue with his promised project of helping Dudley get his vengeance on Voldemort.

At least, that was his intention with this workshop. What he was actually doing was brewing a certain potion that he’d found in the text of the Sorcery book. The potion itself was nothing too difficult, only needing a couple of strange ingredients but nothing he hadn’t ever handled before. In fact, the potion itself probably wouldn’t have even ranked as a Third Year exercise. But it was what it was capable of doing to a Wizard that made it so unique. If the text was correct, the potion could forcefully open a Wizard’s many magical pressure points, a vital first step to learning to how to absorb ambient magic. The text didn’t imply that the process was painful, only disorienting the first time it was used. And it had to be taken on a weekly basis for about a month before the magical pressure points of the Wizard’s body would finally adjust to remaining open. Thankfully, the potion had a shelf-life of six months before it deteriorated and became worthless.

Completing the strange potion took less than ten minutes of careful brewing and before he knew it, Harry was already ladling the potion into several preservative vials. Taking the last ladle’s worth of potion, he carefully filled the tin goblet with it. Setting aside his equipment and storing the potion vials in one of the desks that remained in the room, he walked over to where the goblet sat and picked it up, again rereading the section in the text about the potion’s properties and how the ‘first touch’ was supposed to feel.

Sighing to himself, Harry looked down at the goblet for a moment with indecision. Did he really wanna do this? Why did he want to this? What was so important about this obscure branch of magic that he felt so compelled to learn it? These questions and more filled his mind for several long minutes, echoing and bouncing off one another. His indecision caused him to falter, stop and rethink everything.

“I want to be strong,” Harry said to himself, trying to reassure himself. “If I’m not strong, I can’t protect anyone. If I keep playing by Voldemort’s rules, I’ll never beat him. We’re playing a game, and he’s already got decades more experience at it than I do. I need an advantage, and my lightsaber won’t be enough help to fight him…not by itself.” Sighing again, he quickly brought the goblet to his lips and drank it before he could change his mind again.

Once the goblet was emptied, Harry set it back on the desk by the book. He took a few cautious steps backwards before settling himself on the ground, sitting cross-legged as he waited for the potion to work its magic. ‘Concentrate on your breathing,’ the text said. ‘Focus on drawing in and pushing out.’ As he was doing so, he could feel his body start to…tingle. It felt like little strands of fine silk were brushing over his skin, all across his body. ‘Concentrate on breathing.’ And then little pinpricks of pain began occurring, like someone was pricking with him needles all over. Although not entirely painful, it was an unpleasant experience all the same as it began spreading. ‘Breathe in.’ He took a breath and suddenly everything changed.

In a moment of time, Harry found himself utterly unable to move, like he had simply been frozen in time. He instinctively tried to fight against whatever it was that was forcing itself inside of him and trying to corrupt who and what he was. But the battle was over before it even started. The invading force was simply too overwhelming, too powerful, too forceful for him to possibly have any hope of repelling away from. In that moment of time, he stopped struggling, giving up and awaiting the inevitable to occur. In that moment of time, his magic completely dropped away.

In that moment in time, Harry felt the flickering candle’s flame of hope he had kept throughout his journey of the past few months snuff itself out. Hope that he could somehow manage to survive, to win, that he could defeat Voldemort once and for all, that he could manage to truly bond with his long-estranged cousin after 14 years of strained and bad relations. In that moment of time in which time seemed to slow and stretch on into infinity, Harry felt a part of himself collapse in on itself. Like a star with all of its fire snuffed out, it faltered and caved in on itself.

Then, when he had almost let his hope slip away like a breeze through his fingers, the next moment of time slammed into him with the force of a star going nova. In that next infinitesimally short yet monumentally tangible moment in time, Harry felt something occur within himself that his mind could not truly grasp or explain yet was unquestionably real. It was like the crack of a shattering crystal, or the flash of light from a camera. It happened so fast he almost didn’t catch the moment of change, yet he would never be able to forget what happened. In that moment of time, Harry could ‘collapse’ no further. Like a nuclear bomb at critical mass, it released the energy it could no longer contain.

And, suddenly, he was gone. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the estranged Wizarding hero, the boy with the largest target on his back for Voldemort and his followers, was suddenly no more. In his place, a new boy was born. Harry Potter had finally awakened to a new power that he had never known before, and yet somehow was so intimately familiar with.

________________________________________

Norway

The frigid forests of the far northern lands were usually thawed by this time of year. Summers were very short, but there was generally a bit of greenery to be seen in the absolutely breathtaking beauty of the lands. Yet, in this small, remote portion of the peninsula, winter held an eternal grip upon the lands. Snow was only lightly layered on the ground and trees, but it was still very much present. As the elderly man who was fell upon it face-first knew firsthand.

He had a shaven head and an ageless face, making it extremely difficult to determine whether he was in his early twenties or late sixties. But his dark eyes held a vast swath of experience in them as he rolled himself over and looked up at the one who’d caused him to collapse in the snow in the first place.

The figure was dressed in a black robe, with a metallic chest plate and broad pads on his shoulders. A ragged cloak hung under his armor and helped insulate the being from the cold. The being’s face was hidden under a deep hood, shrouded in shadows. Held at his waist casually in one hand was a broad sword, sharpened to absolute perfection and its blade was glowing an ominous and unnatural blood-red aura, as was the blood gem that was locked in the sword’s pommel stone.

“My answer is still no,” the fallen man declared, utterly unconcerned about the armored figure who loomed threateningly over him. “Now, return to your master, slave.”

“That is your final answer?” the armored figure demanded coldly, ignoring the man’s jibe.

The fallen man merely nodded as he pulled himself up to his knees.

“Very well.” The blazing red sword jabbed forward, burying itself into the fallen man’s chest, straight through his heart. The man barely had time to look surprised at the suddenness of the unexpected attack before the blade was extracted and he toppled over onto his side, dead. With a casual flick of his wrist, the armored figure swept the corpse’s blood from the blade and then smoothly sheathed the broad sword.

As the armored figure was turning away, it glimpsed a hazy figure suddenly appear before two meters ahead of him, ghostly blue-white and partially transparent. Recognizing the being ahead of it, the figure instantly dropped to his knee, head bowed. “It is done, my master.”

“Truloc refused?” the ghostly figure inquired, looking over its servant’s shoulder to see the body sprawled on the ground. Turning back to his servant, the figure said, “There has been an Awakening. Have you felt it?”

“Yes, my master.”

“Journey to Great Britain,” the master ordered. “And deal with this one. Be cautious. This one is…unusually strong.”

“It shall be done, my master.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, tell me, what did all of you think for this opening of my latest idea of a Star Wars x Harry Potter story? I will say this with definitive assurance: Star Wars in this story is NOT an entirely separate universe, nor is the Earth in an undiscovered section of space within the Star Wars-verse galaxy. Star Wars is merely a piece of fiction that Harry was deeply inspired by. However, that is not to say that there will not be other continuing similarities and other SW-inspired stuff that’ll take place within the realms of this story. In fact, a significant piece of the SW-franchise will be playing a large role in the course of this storyline and I’ll do my best to explain the how’s and why’s behind it when that piece comes to light.
> 
> Now then, that aside, could any of you please tell me what you liked in this chapter? What you didn’t? What caught you by surprise? Do you think my brief explanation of how his lightsaber was made and how it works is good enough or do you want a more detailed explanation? Do you like the concept of Dudley joining Harry, in a personal quest to avenge his parents?
> 
> And, yes, that reference with Luke and Han is a hint to the type of role Dudley will be playing. Granted, he has a long way to go to reach that point. And, yes, Harry quite obviously took Runes instead of Divination because he saw it as a much more useful class than trying to learn foresight.
> 
> For those of you who are wondering, I’m kinda basing Harry’s lightsaber off of designs I’ve seen of Galen Marek’s first lightsaber, combined with Rohm Kota’s, as well as Kanan’s little disassembly trick.


End file.
